Food will be difficult to get for Florida families this summer

Taylor Grant squeezed the sauce next to a dinosaur-shaped nugget that had just been pulled from the air fryer. She handed out a styrofoam plate to her 14-year-old daughter, April.

In the sink, raw chicken was thawed for dinner. Grant, 29, sat by his side in April, but didn’t eat. Pushing a red braid into the back of the leopard print headband, she said she usually only eats once a day so that the child can eat.

“I’ll stretch it out,” she said.

A mother of four and a nursing student, Grant is doing everything he can to support his children this summer. She’s not alone. For the third year in a row, Floridians say buying groceries has become more difficult, according to a statewide survey by No Hungry Florida, a nonprofit that works to increase access to food for children. More than half say rising food prices have caused more debt in the past year alone.

“Summer is a particularly difficult time for parents to support their children,” said Sky Beard, director of Kid Hungry. Many Florida families rely on free or low-cost school lunches that reached more than 2.2 million students between 2024 and 25, according to state education data.

Families relying on these diets face additional challenges in the summer. Nonetheless, Florida is one of 13 states that have turned down Sambacs or summer EBT. This is an additional $120 program that adds grocery benefits to each eligible child over the summer. Families enrolled in the Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program will automatically qualify. Beard said more than 2.1 million children in Florida will benefit.

Florida has never opted in since Sun Bucks became a permanent federal program in 2022. Unlike regular food aid benefits that are facing major federal cuts, Sambacs are not under the threat of the same funding, Beard said.

“It’s all federal money spent on local communities, local grocery stores and local farmers’ markets,” Beard said. Families can spend their money where food aid benefits are accepted.

To join Sambacs, the state will need to cover about $12 million in administrative costs, Beard said. In return, the program would generate $259 million in profits for Florida families, she said. The deadline for next summer is January.

According to the US Department of Agriculture, he is participating in the program, which has grown to 37 this year. Texas announced plans to join in 2027, but Gov. Greg Abbott refused the funds.

“I hope Florida will be one of them too,” Beard said.

Gov. Ron Desantis’s office did not respond to a request for comment when asked why the state was not participating in Sambacs.

Grant lives on Temple Terrace near Eversity. Her four children are eligible for free breakfast and lunch during the school year, but different in the summer. Three of them have access to subsidized diets through daycare, but in April her eldest son just ages.

In April, with Autism Spectrum Disorder, “it’s never going to be full,” Grant said.

Over the summer, family food needs increase. The kids are more at home. Heat rehydrates by purchasing excess water, electrolytes, fruits and snacks. Grant plans at least three bulk meals, like spaghetti and chicken, stretching out leftovers over multiple days.

“It’s a very important strategy,” she said. “When you go to the store, you go up all the aisles.”

As a full-time student, Grant receives $940 in federal food aid benefits each month. With the extra sun money, Grant said he could feed his children without sacrificing the maintenance or utility of the house.

“We usually barely cut that down, and then in the summer, now we’re pulling money from the bill,” she said.

The Benefits of Florida being rejected

Beard said one reason Florida isn’t taking part in the Sambachs program is that some lawmakers believe food banks and nonprofits are already meeting their families’ summer needs.

“I wish that was true,” Beard said. “Unfortunately, that’s not true for many Floridians right now.”

Summer meal programs can help, but not everything can fill the gap. Ashena Moses, director of Impact for Florida’s statewide anti-hunger organizations, said the food bank where her organization works is already capable.

Local food bank directors say that part of the reason they’re thinning is due to increased cost of living.

“In the Tampa Bay Area, gas, housing and food costs have risen quite dramatically over the past three to five years, and wages have not grown at a similar pace,” said Thomas Manz, director of Feeding Tampa Bay, a nonprofit that provides food and connects families with support. “People are even more behind, and when they do that, they turn to social services networks like us.”

Manz, whose organization distributes about 100 million meals this year, said about a quarter of those meals go to the kids.

According to Moses, children are at risk of developmental challenges, especially as they are not enough to eat.

“Hunger hurts the memory, concentration and behavior of school-age children,” she said. The advantages of foods such as Sambacs are that they can “stabilize, learn and grow your child’s environment.”

A major threat to the safety net

The debate over fundraising for Sambax comes amid growing federal scrutiny of other food aid programs. Changes in the Trump administration’s “big beautiful bill” could increase state costs to manage supplementary nutrition assistance programs and require states to help fund actual benefits for the first time, Beard said.

Several experts estimate that the state is expected to pay around $1.6 billion to cover food aid benefits.

“You’ve already got it, you won’t get it anymore,” said Moses, director of Impact in Florida.

In Florida, more than 2.8 million residents rely on the nation’s largest food aid program. She said it means “the difference between serving groceries or going without food.”

Moses warned that cuts would also affect taxpayers.

“More food insecurity leads to high demand for emergency assistance, school lunch programs and healthcare services,” she said. “It creates a domino effect of higher social costs that taxpayers have to ultimately bear.”

Local food banks are enduring the effects.

“We want to make sure people understand the level of loss,” Manz said. “We don’t have the resources to overcome that.”

To the grant, losing her benefits would be “harmful.”

“I don’t know what we’re going to do in that situation,” she said. “I hope it doesn’t come to it.”

Grant, who grew up in a family that struggled to put food on the table, said her children’s goals were simple.

“I want to be better for them,” she said. “So they grow up to do things I can never do.”

After sunbathing, she could afford more.

“It would even open the door to think about possibilities,” she said, “Because I can’t do it now.”